A DREAM

A bitter man, black-faced, imprisoned
In a red-carpeted room, raging
At the squalor of his life; and then myself
Climbing the circular stairs to his door,
The treads just a foot wide, unbannistered,
Dark the well and infinite the fall,
Fear forcing me upwards to meet a fear
I had to meet.
                        A fierce, cracking shot
The bullet shuddering through and seeming
To shake the stairs: I knew a man dead,
And his face above me, just his face,
His white face staring down at me
Seeing or unseeing I could not tell
Though I knew he knew that one truth
I must know: silent, unspeaking
He stared at me, and desperate I pleaded
‘Tell me, tell me,’ but whiter and whiter
His white face faded slowly away,
And I awoke, thrilled with fear,
Relieved to find that world not mine,
Glad as I rehearsed the progress of the dream
And felt again the fear I’d just escaped,
So very glad of our comfortable room
First light glimmering behind the curtains
My wife breathing quietly beside me
Glad of the familiar noises of the street
The hum and buzz of the milkman’s cart
The chink of bottles, a deep relief
That I live here.
                            But in that world
I had escaped I knew there was
A dark unfathomable truth,
Not mine while I live on content
In this little world of lies.